India Lenon is at Oxford University, combining her studies of Classics with all the other joys of student life. She blogs about current affairs and government policies affecting students and young people. India is @indialenon on Twitter.

The problem with giving a third of Oxford bursaries to independent school pupils

Oxford University students on their way to take examinations (Photo: Getty)

It emerged last week that one third of bursaries to Oxford University go to students who were educated at independent schools. Oxford hadn’t planned to release this statistic, but it slipped out during a talk given by the Director for Undergraduate Admissions, much to the glee of the student press, and the discomfiture of the powers that be.

The problem, of course, is not that there are independently-educated students receiving bursaries. In itself, this is perfectly understandable, since the majority of these recipients will have received financial assistance to enable them to attend private schools as well. No – the problem lies in the fact that such a high proportion of Oxford’s bursaries are going to students from this sort of background. They will, necessarily, have parents who value learning, and who have fought to make sure that their children get a good one. And they will have benefitted from the sort of environment which independent schools provide: good teaching, good facilities, and (above all) emphasis on higher education.

I repeat, students from this sort of background are as deserving of their places as any others. But their receipt of bursaries means that we must not be too heartened when Oxford (and other universities) boast of how much they are doing to widen access. Access is not only about giving places to those who would not otherwise have been able to afford them – it is about giving places to those who would not otherwise have even applied for them, the student who is the first in his family to go to university, or the first from his school to go to Oxbridge.

The Charities Commission’s insistence on more bursaries at independent schools will mean they will continue to cream off more and more talented pupils from the state sector, and so more of those will get a leg up to Oxbridge. This is the whole point of the bursaries, but it will also further reinforce the preconceptions about Oxbridge which exist in state schools. This, combined with the higher fees which are soon to arrive, could prove a very big problem for Oxford indeed.